NEW YORK – Rafael Furcal is going through baseball activities today with Class AA Jacksonville to determine the severity of the right groin injury he suffered Friday.
“He’s been evaluated,” manager Mike Redmond said. “He’s going through baseball activities now to see if he’s going to be able to play (Sunday).

“Hopefully it was just tight and he’ll be okay and able to play Sunday.”

Furcal, 36, was injured going from first to third on a double in his rehab game for Jacksonville. He was removed in the third inning.

The second baseman is on a rehab assignment with the Suns and has not played this season as he recovers from a left hamstring strain suffered early in spring training.

K-oed

Marlins hitters have 54 strikeouts in their last four games, giving them 216 on the season, second most in the NL behind the Mets’ 219.

“We definitely got to make some adjustments there and try to put the balls in play,” Redmond said. “It’s big for us as a team to make sure we add on and drive those runs in when we have opportunities with less than two outs. It takes some pressure off our pitching.”

Two of Miami’s 13 strikeouts on Friday came in the sixth inning with Casey McGehee at third base and one out. The Marlins gave come up 48 times this season with a runner on third and less than two outs and scored just 19 times for a 40 percent success ratio, which is next to last in the majors.

“If we go into that ninth inning (Friday) night with a couple of run lead maybe that’s a different ballgame,” Redmond said about the 4-3 loss in which Steve Cishek allowed two runs to snap his 33 consecutive save streak.

“We had opportunities to add on a couple of runs and it didn’t happen. Definitely that’s an area we need to improve on so we don’t put that much pressure on our pitching every single night.”